[CTC] E&E: Greens decry House ban on addressing warming in trade deals

[Fred Heutte]

Greens decry House ban on addressing warming in trade deals 

Jean Chemnick, E&E reporter

Published: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 

Environmentalists have urged House and Senate negotiators on a
customs bill to jettison a House-passed provision stripping the U.S.
trade representative of the ability to consider climate change in
trade deals.

The House attached the language to its version of the bill granting
the president "fast-track" trade promotion authority, but greens say
it could compromise future climate action and even some bilateral
agreements the United States is already party to.

"If accepted, it would limit the United States' latitude to safeguard
climate policies from trade attacks under existing and future trade
agreements," the green groups wrote in a letter to conferees. "It
would inject even greater uncertainty into ongoing negotiations in
the [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] and other
arenas by raising new questions about the scope of U.S. negotiating
authority, and it would raise serious challenges to the fulfillment
of formal agreements like the U.S.-China commitment to facilitate
trade in clean-energy technologies, and global commitments to phase
out fossil fuel subsidies."

The provision would bar the U.S. trade representative from entering
into agreements that "require changes to U.S. law or that obligate
the United States with respect to global warming and climate change."

Republicans say the language would prevent the administration from
using trade deals as a way to circumvent congressional authority to
legislate on climate. But groups including the Sierra Club and the
Center for Biological Diversity say the clause could put a variety of
actions out of reach, making it impossible for the U.S. to preserve
the integrity and effectiveness of existing U.S. environmental
regulations while negotiating with another country.

The inclusion of this language in the bill is particularly
concerning, the letter argues, in light of the world's hopes of
securing an international climate deal in Paris at the end of this
year.

Conferees originally aimed to complete the bill before the House
leaves for August recess this week, but the House has not yet moved
to go to conference.

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